mouse and keyboard are freezing up

Hello,
I have an old desktop pc - HP Pavilion 7865 that has been working just fine (once I replace the psu that died) until the last few days. All of a sudden after the pc has been running for a short time (probably not more than 5 - 10 minutes) the mouse and keyboard are no longer operable.

The pc came with a keyboard and mouse that connect to the pc via usb. I do happen to have an older keyboard and mouse and since the pc does have those ports as well I tried using the older keyboard and mouse but the same thing happens. Once it freezes there is nothing that I can do - no matter how long I wait. One time, I actually left it alone over night and the mouse and keyboard were still frozen the next morning in hopes that it would be working again and I wouldn't have to do a hard shutdown again.

The mouse and keyboard do work when the pc is first turned on but very shortly afterwards they freeze up. I have even opened up the tower to make sure that all the fans are working properly and free of dust. I have checked all of the connections as well and taken all the pci cards and video card out and reinstalled them as well as the memory. Even ran a memtest. All is fine there.

I haven't tried running the pc in safe mode yet to see if the problem occurs in safe mode - thought I would check here first in case there were some other suggestions (since I really hate to keep having to to a hard shutdown.

The hard drive is only a few months old and the pc is running windows xp professional.

Any suggestions would be so very much appreciated.

TIA

 

Have you tried the safe mode yet and did you add any new software recently ??? and what version of XP and service pack.

 

Hi,
Sounds more like a software issue than any thing else. I would suggest disabling all of your start up programs and start them one at a time to see wich one is causing the freeze up.
Have you tried running any AV/Malware scans as malware can create issues like this also.

 

One thought is to open Task Manager before the freezing occurs and then after it freezes up make sure that the CPU isn't maxed out and that the numbers are still changing. That might rule out that Windows isn't freezing and that it is just the keyboard and mouse.

 

I appreciate your getting back to me and I truly apologize for taking so long to reply. However, there has been a medical emergency with my parents and this is the first time I have had any time to even check messages (let alone anything else).

I haven't added any new software recently and the computer is running Windows XP with SP3. The only programs that are running in the background are the AVAST Anti-Virus and Comodo Firewall (both of which are also running on the other xp machine as well) I do run the Lavasoft Ad-Aware program, Spybot, Super Anti-Spyware and MalwareBytes weekly. As for things that are listed in Start-Up in the start>all programs>startup folder --- it is empty.

I would try starting in Safe Mode and see what happens as well as opening up the task manager right after start up so that when it freezes up I can check to see that the cpu isn't maxed out.

However, there seems to be a new problem when I did turn on the computer last night to try starting in safe mode. Now I am getting getting a No VGA Signal message on the monitor when the computer is starting up so I can't do anything. I even plugged in a different monitor with the same result (however that monitor does not give you a monitor status screen so all I get is the black monitor).

I know that the pc is running because the fans are all going and I can hear the hard drive as well.

I have opened up the tower and removed and reseated the video graphics card but that did not help. I also tried removing the CMOS battery, waiting about 10 minutes and then putting it back in but that did not help either. I did make sure that the memory is seated properly as well. I did read somewhere to make sure that none of the capacitors on the motherboard and see if any are bulging or leaking and none are doing either of these things. I also checked the fan on the heatsink to make sure it was not clogged with dust and I did use canned air to clean out any dust that was there anyway. The psu is new but I did check (using the paperclip test) and that is running just fine).

I think that the computer just may be dying. It is over 10 years old (an HP Pavilion 7865) I was actually going to give this to my parents so that they could have something for keeping all their records and such but I don't know about that now.

Any ideas as to why this new problem may have arisen or on what to check?

TIA

 

Hi I can empathise with your family problem I have near the same... Seeing that the rig is 10 years pld this maybe that the CMOS battery needs replacing I would try that first. Does the black screen have a small white cursor there ???

 

So sorry to hear that you too have similar family problems. But the way I look at is that they did all they could for me when I was growing up, the least I can do is to help them out now that they are getting older and have multiple medical issues (unfortunately Dad who was the healthier one was recently diagnosed with aggressive advanced prostate cancer).

Anyway, I thought that perhaps the battery needed to be replaced so I did go out since my last post and purchase a new one and have installed that but still not getting a VGA Signal / black screen depending on which monitor I plug in.

I do have an older Dell so I took the video card out of the HP and put it into the Dell and started up the Dell and the video card is not the issue. I took the hard drive out and put that into the Dell as a slave (since the HP is an AMD processor and the Dell is Pentium I didn't think I could just start the pc up with the hard drive that was in the HP) and am running SeaTools for Dos on the slave drive to make sure that there are no issues with the hard drive. It did pass the short test and is about 88% of the way through the long test and so far no issues there either.

I did find an article while searching for other possible things to fix or try for the "no VGA Signal" issue and came across an article "What to Do if Your Computer Won't Turn On" at http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/547 so I printed out the article and plan to try those once the hard drive test is done.

I did follow the first set of steps which was an external inspection and all is find there. The next step is an internal inspection and I have already done that as well and there are no beeps when I started up the pc either.

Step #3 states to clear the CMOS memory but after doing some searching as it turns out the pavilion 7865 does not have a jumper setting on the motherboard - as per the HP site - "There are no jumper blocks on this motherboard. Settings controlled in BIOS." So all I can do in this step is to remove the battery and replace it which is what I did earlier today.

While waiting for the hard drive test to complete I decided to start on step #4 which is to "remove bad contacts" and in this step they suggest cleaning the memory cards, video / graphics card and the memory card slots as well as the video card slot. It also states to Clean the CPU Contacts but from what I have been reading at the HP site (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...139/loc:3&cc=us&dlc=&lc=en&product=58894#N424) if I remove that I will need some thermal grease when putting the cpu back in and I do not have any of that on hand so I am not going to do that step right now. If need be I will have to find out where to get some thermal grease and try that step as well (although that step does make me a little bit nervous - don't want to screw it up any more than it already is)

So right now I am pretty much at the point where I did all of the things listed in step #4 (except the part with the cpu since I don't have any thermal grease and will have to find some).

But right now I need to get up to my parents and make sure that they are okay and have had their dinner (good thing I am only about 5 miles from their house). So when I get back if I have some time I will finish up that step and see if the pc will start up (otherwise I will get to that step after their doctors appointments tomorrow).

Anyway, I figured it can't hurt to try those steps in the order given and see if that resolves the problem.

If you have any other ideas or suggestions I am open to hearing and trying them as well.

Thanks so Very Much

------ okay, the long hard drive test just finished as well and it states that it passes without error.

Gotta go check on Mom and Dad

 

Well, I think that I may have resolved the no vga display on this computer. As I had stated I started to follow the directions for What to Do if Your Computer Won't Turn On" at http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/547 .

After cleaning all of the contacts on the pci cards, video card and memory modules I installed the video card and the monitor turned on. I then plugged in the other memory module and all was fine. I then proceeded to plugged in the pci card that has the phone lines on it and again the monitor turned on when I turned on the pc. So this time I plugged in the one usb pci card an all was fine there as well. However, when I plugged in the other usb pci card into the last pci port I got no vga signal again. I then took that card out and move another card into that slot and all was well, so I tried putting the card in question into the slot that I know was working and I am back to just getting the black screen when the pc is turned on. So I am thinking that the problem is that this one usb pci card is the culprit as to why I was not getting a vga signal to the monitor.

Not sure why that is but it does seem to be an issue. I have not plugged in the hard drive, floppy drive, cd-rom drive or dvd drive yet but will continue with plugging in each one (one at a time with the hard drive being the last item) and see if the computer monitor does turn on each time before going to the next step. Perhaps this bad card is also the reason I was having mouse and keyboard issues as well. (I don't know that for a fact - just guessing)

Will let you know how things go after I finish up these last steps. Have to go and get dinner ready for my parents but will try to finish this up this evening and will keep you posted.

Thanks!

 

The pc is now up and running again and the mouse and keyboard are also working (at least for now and hopefully always). Anyway, I am guessing that the both issues were due to the one usb pci card going bad since both issues no longer seem to exist since I removed that card.

Here's hoping that the issues have been permanently resolved.

Now to just figure out why I can't seem to access gpedit.msc on that machine.

Thanks Again for Everything.